Heater Setup:
I recently picked up a Chinese made diesel parking heater similar to name brands like Webasto, Espar, Planar, etc. I purchased an “all-in-one” unit on Amazon that comes pre-assembled in a red box. Space is limited in the camper so I wanted this to be a modular setup that could be set up outside the camper and we could simply leave it behind in warmer months. I was inspired by some roof top tent users online and decided to set the heater on the ground and run the heat outlet hose into the camper. I chose to run it through the side door rather than cutting a hole in the camper.
Photo of the heater set up outside the rig. The photo on the right has a simple rain cover that I made to protect the heater from the elements. The cover is made out of corrugated plastic that I glued together and cut out all the necessary openings and clearances for the intakes and exhaust. Ignore the orange strap on the wheel. We used that to tie down an EZ-UP canopy that we had behind the truck.
Close up photo of the window. I built a window spacer out of some plywood to give me an area to cut holes and run the heater hose and 12v power supply. The spacer is held in place by a couple small bungees and is foldable for storage. The disadvantage to this setup is that I can't open the side door when this is all in place. If I really want to commit, I could cut a hole in the side of the camper, but I'm nervous to cut a 3" hole for something we will likely only use for a few months out of the year.
Overall Conclusion:
Outside of some initial "driveway testing," we have only used the heater for 3 nights. So far, it works! Before using it overnight, I ran the heater for a few hours in my driveway. It was a windy day around 40F. I placed a thermometer on the mattress and about an hour later it was in the 60's. A couple hours later it was almost 70F. We have run the heater overnight (8+ hours) a few times and it has worked great.
Finer details:
The heater requires both diesel and a 12v power supply to operate. The "all-in-one" unit comes with a fuel tank (roughly 1 gallon). For the 12v power, I extended the original power cable to reach our Jackery Explorer 300 (293 wh) battery unit. This heater has a thermostat control, however I have only used it on the manual setting. The camper is such a small space that I have only ever needed the lowest possible setting it can run. On the lowest setting, the heater draws about 6 watts of power. However, during the startup and shutdown it draws about 100-130 watts for about 5-10 minutes in order to heat the glow plug. Since the heater draws the most power during startup and shutdown, I think it is most efficient to just leave on low rather than starting and stopping repeatedly.
Using the lowest setting, it will deplete the Jackery 300 battery by about 35% when used overnight. Diesel consumption is really minimal-- less than 25% of the tank is consumed after running overnight.
